The Convergence of Retrospective and Prospective Assessments of Childhood Abuse: Prospective Longitudinal Evidence from an At-risk sample

Abstract

Scholars across multiple disciplines, both within and beyond developmental psychology, have been long interested in the effects of childhood abuse. Many studies have investigated the legacy of experiences of childhood abuse. However, most of these studies take a retrospective approach to studying early life experiences. Recent meta-analytic evidence (Baldwin et al., 2019) has demonstrated that retrospective measures of child abuse are not a valid proxy for prospective longitudinal data. The present report builds on these meta-analytic findings by investigating the convergence of prospectively documented child abuse from birth to age 17.5 in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA) and retrospective assessments of physical and sexual abuse newly coded in the context of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Surprisingly, the convergence between prospective and retrospective assessments of childhood abuse was notably higher (k = .71) than previously seen in meta-analytic findings (k = .19). Convergence between retrospective and prospective measures were similar across dichotomous and continuous measures of abuse as well as type of abuse (physical and sexual). Convergence was lowest for abuse perpetrated by non-caregivers and for abuse perpetrated in infancy. The implications for future research investigating childhood experiences of physical and sexual abuse are discussed.